In the pharmaceutical industry, a machine for filling capsules with pharmaceutical products of the type described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,615,165 is known, comprising a pocket conveyor, continuously movable along a given path extending about a train of wheels comprising, in turn, an opening wheel adapted to receive each capsule, defined by a corresponding bottom and by a corresponding closing cap, from a feeding hopper, to open each capsule and to feed each bottom into a corresponding pocket of the conveyor device; a dosing wheel adapted to feed a given amount of pharmaceutical product into each bottom; and a closing wheel adapted to close each bottom with a corresponding cap.
Each wheel is mounted to continuously rotate about a rotation axis parallel to the rotation axes of other wheels, and is provided with a plurality of actuating members, which are uniformly distributed along a peripheral edge of the wheel, are moved forward by the wheel about the corresponding rotation axis, and are movable in a direction parallel to the mentioned rotation axes, with respect to the wheel itself.
The actuating members of each wheel are moved in the mentioned direction by means of a corresponding cam-actuating device, comprising at least one cam obtained on the outer surface of a cylinder fixed to a frame of the machine coaxially to the corresponding rotation axis and, for each actuating member, a corresponding tappet engaged in the cam and connected to the actuating member itself.
As each cylinder should have a diameter larger than a threshold value under which the shape of the corresponding cam is such to prevent the correct control of the movements of the corresponding actuating members in the mentioned direction, the known machines for filling capsules with pharmaceutical products of the above-described type, although widely tried and tested, have some drawbacks mainly deriving from that these machines are relatively large and may not be made with the relatively small size of machines for laboratories or pharmacies.